


She Walks Away

by Morgan_nesbitt



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/F, Friends to Enemies, Friends to Enemies to Lovers, Light Bondage, Making Out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-25 05:13:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16654891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morgan_nesbitt/pseuds/Morgan_nesbitt
Summary: Catra thinks that maybe she likes the rage reflected in those eyes, blue and deep as an ocean on fire.





	She Walks Away

**Author's Note:**

> I truly did not expect to love these two as much as I do

The news spreads slowly through the compound, creeping like a shadow behind every door. _Adora_ , the darkness whispers, a wicked voice licking at the shell of her ear. _Adora is home_.

Catra should be the first to know but, as per usual, Shadow Weaver makes a game of leaving her unaware. Her flare for the dramatic is going to drive this place into the dirt, but Catra knows better now than to voice her complaints. Reason lands on deaf ears, and her voice would go dry and cracked before anyone here listened to her.

Adora used to listen.

But Adora is dead; lost to the power of a sword and a princess. Whisked away and brainwashed by the enemy all in the time it took for Catra’s tail to twitch. She-Ra, she calls herself now. With that sword in her hand, her best friend is unrecognizable. All she can see is power. Power that cuts so deep it stays invisible. Power that Catra could find—she’s sure of it—if only she could get her hands buried between She-Ra’s ribs.

Shadow Weaver has her. The plan worked, the whispers say. Catra delivered the sparkling princess and She-Ra was quick to follow, just as she suspected. Adora always was soft. She-Ra is no different.

“Where is she?” Catra’s voice is a growl, animalistic and raw. She knows how she sounds. If only she knew how to turn off the surge of emotions that crowd her stomach at every mention of Adora’s name. “Where are they keeping her?”

Kyle stutters when he answered, but Kyle always stutters and Catra leaves him sitting stunned on the floor as she pushes her way through the crowd.

The first thing that she sees is the sword.

There it is, all gleaming and bright with its golden handle and ruby red as freshly spilled blood. Catra hates how beautiful it is. Hates how _good_ it looks, like its one of those damned princesses reincarnated, smiles made of white light and lies.

And there’s Adora.

She doesn’t look like a princess—not now. Not with the sword locked up half a room away and her lip swollen with a bruise. Not strapped to a table, dirty and torn and angry. It’s that last one that gives Catra pause. Adora has always been righteous, always headstrong whether she’s fighting for a promotion or fighting to kill the people she once called family. But this. This is something different.

Catra thinks that maybe she likes the rage reflected in those eyes, blue and deep as an ocean on fire.

The room isn’t empty but Shadow Weaver is nowhere to be seen. Catra doesn’t stop to consider that. She takes her luck where she can get it, hoards every small moment of victory she can find.

There’s the shimmery princess, unconscious on the other side of the room where red tendrils of flashing energy hold her captive. Catra’s gaze slides over her, uninterested. She-Ra is here. _Adora_. 

“You’re not going to win.” Ah, there it is. The edge in Adora’s voice, sharp as the blade she’s taken to carrying.

Catra casts her an amused smile. “I hate to say this, but that sounds rich coming from you.”

Her eyes narrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Theres a strand of blonde hair stuck to her cheek with sweat. Catra’s fingers itch to brush it away and she clenches them into fists.

“It means,” she says, lip curling until her smile is more of a snarl, “that two weeks ago you were upset with me for not being happy about your promotion. Remember that? Or did you hit your head when you fell for Princess Sparkles over there.” 

A flash of something unidentifiable crosses her expression. Catra swims in it, breathes it in, savours it. It urges her closer, one foot in front of the other until she’s standing to Adora’s side, hovering over her. “Newsflash Adora,” her voice is softer than she meant it to be, “the rebellion is going to lose. And they’re going to drag you down with them.”

Adora is struggling against her restraints, muscles taut as she strains away from— _or towards?_ —Catra. The perfect little captain doesn’t look so ideal now, with her clothes torn and blood trickling from a slash across her cheek. Catra follows its slow descent across her skin, sliding down her jaw like a stray tear. She rests a hand on Adora’s chin, swipes it away with her thumb. It leaves behind a smeared stain of red.

They’ve given up on words, both aware that there’s nothing left to say. There’s no going back to the days of shared bunks and training. This is what Adora chose. Catra’s eyes flick to the slumped form of Glimmer suspended in those red lights on the other side of the room.

This is _who_ Adora chose.

She draws her hand away, takes a step back. Why did she come here? To remind herself of what she’s lost? To prove to herself that Adora is truly gone? 

Catra frowns, lowers her hand from Adora’s face, cuts her eyes to the side. She has no reason to be here. The plan worked. The rebellion will be crushed, and maybe she won’t get all the glory that she deserves but she’ll find another way. She’s resourceful. She’s strong. 

Fingers circle around her wrist as she turns to move away and Catra freezes. She doesn’t want to turn around—doesn’t want to see the look on Adora’s face, the hatred or the pity or, worse, the sorrow—but she does it anyway. She does it, and what she finds knocks the breath from her lungs like a fist to the stomach.

Adora’s eyes are filled with fire. 

But there’s a difference now, a nuance to the flames that wasn’t there before. Something that drags Catra closer, that calls to some primal part of her. Her ears twitch nervously toward the door, jumpy and on edge, waiting for Shadow Weaver to glide through and catch her like this. Vulnerable.

Adora doesn’t say a word, but she doesn’t have to. It’s years of cumulated silences, a decade of fuelled energy pushing them forward like a symphony reaching its long-awaited crescendo. Catra thinks that she couldn’t stop it if she tried. 

It’s up to her to close the distance, and she does it in the same way that she does everything—impulsive and reckless and with too much force. Adora is her opposite, commanding and determined and sure. But together they work. The colliding force of them sparks into something new, something greater, something exciting building in the slide of soft lips.

Catra doesn’t bother to be gentle. She licks and nips and takes and takes and takes until Adora is panting beneath her, chest heaving and eyes hooded. She abuses Adora’s mouth until the cut in her lip breaks open, the taste of copper heavy and sweet on Catra’s tongue. They kiss like they’re drowning in each other, and Catra thinks that maybe they are—that maybe they always have been. That Adora has filled her lungs since she first learned how to breathe.

Catra hates how her body curves toward her. Hates how good it feels to press skin against skin. Even now, with Adora tied up and complacent beneath her, she’s still the one in control. She doesn’t even have to try for it. Catra burns with hate and her stomach burns with something else and she has never felt so confused. 

When she pulls away its like she’s broken the surface of water, sounds and thoughts and reason all crashing back in. Adora is staring at her, bright eyed and burning, and Catra clamps down on the anxiety threatening to choke her. Forces her lips into some assimilation of a smirk. Her heart beats rapidly in her chest but her movements are slow as she drags one claw lazily down Adora’s neck to watch her shiver. How easy it would be, the action seems to say, to cut your throat right here and now. 

There’s no way the implication is lost on Adora and yet she tilts her chin, opens herself up, places herself fully on display. Catra’s breath catches in her throat. Her claw taps against skin, traces the outline of a vein just barely visible. Adora flinches but Catra is perceptive and she sees the way that her lips fall open, the way that her eyes flutter shut.

Catra glances at the door, weighs her options. Then she leans down and replaces her claw with her lips.

This time she definitely hears Adora’s breath shutter. She feels the way that her body strains toward her touch, the way that she opens herself up to the assault of tongue and teeth and the brush of gentle lips whispering above it all. 

She wonders if Adora can feel the way that her hand shakes where it grips her jaw.

“Catra,” her name is a whisper from Adora’s mouth, soft and heavy with all of the things left unsaid. All of the regret and the mourning and the pain and the sadness and something else too, but Catra isn’t ready to admit it to herself even if she knows exactly what it is. Even if she knew all along.

Catra doesn’t say anything in return. No quiet confession whispered into sweat-slicked skin. She slowly drags her lips from Adora’s neck, stand up straight, looks down at her. She’s a mess, covered in bruises, stained with blood and dirt. But it’s more than that. She’s messy on the inside too and her composure has finally been cracked, letting all of it—all of _her_ —seep out in globs across her cheeks. Catra takes a picture in her mind. Labels it “She-Ra” and smiles at the irony. Here lies a princess shaken apart by a kiss.

She walks away.

 

* * *

 

Later, she has the sword. Adora is free. Catra lets her go.

 

* * *

 

Later, she feels trapped and confused and scared. This place isn’t made for her. This place does everything it can to destroy her and it knows exactly how to do it.

 

* * *

 

Later, she must make a decision.

She stares down at Adora as she hangs over a cliff, holds the too-bright, too-good sword in her hands, and recalls warm lips sliding against her own.

Those eyes are pleading now, big and wide and helpless as they beg her not to do it. Catra remembers a time not so long ago when she was ruled by that expression, bowed to it like the sea with every wave. Not anymore.

She’s strong.

The sword swings. Adora falls. The tears in Catra’s eyes don’t.

She’s strong.

And she walks away.


End file.
